"Shared stadiums: The flood of e-mail I got on the idea of the 49ers playing in the Oakland Coliseum and the A's at SBC Park was almost entirely supportive, but the idea will be very difficult to implement. It can't be done without strong political leadership, and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown is profoundly anti-sports. Brown must have been the last kid chosen in playground games" "http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/02/10/SPGIS4SS651.DTL"

I agree with Dickey on Brown being anti-sports. I was standing 3-4 feet from Brown when he said "we don't need a baseball team in Oakland there is a team across the bay" !@#$%^& !@#$%^&

Have to disagree that the city of Oakland hasn't improved under Jerry Brown's leadership. Sure, he hasn't been supportive of building a ballpark (and I know I wouldn't want to donate to Schott/Hoffman as seen in Ray Ratto's column), but other things have improved.

Jerry Brown has every right to not care about sports. We elected him to fix our schools, lower crime and bring in new business. It's not his job to spend hundreds of millions of dollars so billionaires can pad their bank accounts.

Furthermore, you are entitled to your opinion of Jerry's worth as a mayor. But, you can't say he doesn't care about this city. He adopted Oakland as his new hometown years before he ran for mayor.

And one thing he's done is bring in a lot more residents downtown. There are places that are being sold now that were first planned years ago and the impact of these places will be seen in a few more years. It is then that I believe we'll be able to look back at one of the positive influences of Jerry Brown on Oakland.

And I would much prefer to look back at that then at the huge deficit we would have from paying off some stupid ballpark.

And I have lived in Oakland all of my life so I know what is going on with gentrification and "urban renewal" in the name of gentrification.

What about natural urban renewal by bringing better schools and natural revilization that lift current oakland residents out of povery and bringing jobs in rather then importing yuppies and letting them desciminate the unique and strong local character of our communities?

I think that Brown and his policues have both helped and hurt Oakland. Some of the initiatives for the revitilization of the downtown area have really begun to show and payoff. He has worked with the small businesses and done fairly well cleaning up in the area around city center/Ogawa Plaza area.

He hrts the area as well because he ignores the benefits (economically and P.R-wise) of the sports franchises that he is lucky enough to have in his area.

If he really wanted to help tourism, he would not only support a ballpark initiative but would also help fund a revitilization project around said area.

If Oakland had a Modern Baseball/Event Park, the land around this park would be prime real estate for businesses to tax, fee based city parking and could actually make a part of Oakland a real DESTINATION for tourists that would reap financial rewards for the city.

In theory sure. In practice? Far from it. Local people get priced out of the local economy getting pushed further and further out to places like Vallejo, Bay Point, & Pittsburg.

Of course the oft omitted "theory" of urban revilization and renewal involves working intensively with local communities, improving schools, jobs, and services which effectively "revitilizes" a community from the bottom up instead of top down. Trickle down urban renewal is much like its older brother. It sure looks great on paper but never plays out as such in real life.